Sales Management: Building Customer Relationships and Partnerships published by Houghton Mifflin last spring is a great companion for large and small business owners who ponder how to make a sales force work harder and smarter. Topics include recruiting, selecting, training, leading, motivating, territorial coverage, routing, compensating, and sales force performance evaluation. This is the author’s second text on a similar subject.

“Sales managers play pivotal, multifaceted roles in planning, organizing, managing, directing, and controlling the sales departments of their organizations,” said Mehta. They are responsible for generating firm revenues and profits; the firm’s success often depends on customer relationships. “After all,” adds Mehta, “Sales revenues are the lifeblood of firms.”

The book analyzes key behavioral, technological, and managerial forces and long-run trends in the sales environment. The emphasis is upon the importance of analytical, communications relationships, plus the leadership skills today’s sales managers need.

The text illustrates the latest information technology developments and innovations impacting the sales manager’s job, particularly when it comes to recruitment, selection, training, sales force planning and forecasting. Long-run, win-win customer relationships and partnerships also matter.

Mehta underscores the increasing importance of ethical considerations for sales managers and salespeople. He communicates the need for sales managers to learn marketing and financial skills in addition to the perspective to contribute to marketing strategy development.

For more about Mehta, see http://www.njit.edu/publicinfo/newsroom/mehta_rajiv_bio.php